Everybody get excited! Vegansaurus pal and super recipe-writer Jerry James Stone has a free seasonal ebook on the way!

Called A Vegan Survival Guide for the Holidays, is a free electronic cookbook with seasonal vegan recipes for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. JJS says It has about 20 recipes, including appetizers, soups and salads, desserts, and cocktails. Pictured is JJS’s roasted brussels sprout mac n cheese, which you know is amazing because you read Holidazed, last year’s cocktail cookbook, and because you love Cooking Stoned as much as we do. Even better, the forward is written by Ed Begley Jr., veganlebrity and amazing human being. And, again, it’s going to be free!

Follow Jerry James Stone via his website, Twitter, or Facebook for amazing recipes, gorgeous food photography, and pictures of Ed Begley, Jr.! Look for A Vegan Survival Guide for the Holidays any day now!

Vegan comedian and Vegansaurus pal Jamie Kilstein is bringing his road show, “A People’s Guide to Comedy,” back to New York! Check him out at the Magnet Theater tonight, November 3, and next Monday, November 10, and see some awesome comedy for just $7! Jamie describes it as:

A show I’ve been doing on the road where after my standup we get grievances from the crowd and since they are lefty vegan types we end up improvising a whole political play. I remember doing a scene in denver coming out to my homophobic dad as vegan.

Pretty all right, right?

Plus, Jamie and his brilliant beautiful wife, Allison Kilkenny, are bringing their podcast, Citizen Radio, to Union Hall on Friday, November 14, for even more political comedy! They’ll be interviewing Mara Wilson and Pia Glenn, and comedy with Christina Gausas, John Frusciante, Katey Healy-Wurzburg, and more. Not bad for $10 ($12 at the door)!

You have three chances in the next two weeks to catch the most ethical funny people you know in New York, all for extremely little money! Do it to it!

Missouri’s Attorney General Chris Koster, who’s leading the ill-fated legal fight against California’s egg-laying hen protection and food safety law, had yet another rough week, with the two largest papers in his state strongly condemning him. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch headlined, “Stench of rotten eggs hangs over Koster,” while the Kansas City Star let readers know that “Chris Koster is too easily wined and dined by corporations and their lobbyists.”

HSUS helped lead the effort to get Koster’s lawsuit against California dismissed, but our fights for farm animals aren’t limited to the courtrooms: We’re also giving them a voice in corporate boardrooms. BusinessWeek’s got the story about our latest shareholder campaign to combat factory farming.

And our campaign to persuade New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to sign a bill to ban gestation crate continues, with Edison the pig showing up in front of the state capitol along with a human-sized gestation crate to give lawmakers and their staff a feel for life in a crate.

We’ve also just launched a hotline and reward program for employees at factory farms and slaughter plants who want to blow the whistle.

Finally, did you know that Target has its own line of vegan meats now? And Boston students are now able to eat more plant-based protein since the school district just implemented meat-free Mondays!

P.S. Video of the week: Enjoy Halloween with Teddy Bear, the pumpkin-eating porcupine!

Hello, gorgeous!

Attention L.A. and surrounding area: Get to Tony’s Darts Away in Burbank next week to try our delicious namesake dog and support the Beagle Freedom Project!

Starting November 3, Tony’s is celebrating Dogs for Dogs, its monthlong support of the Beagle Freedom Project, which rescues beagles from animal experiments and rehabs and rehomes them. So beautiful, right? (Like those beagles in The Ghosts in Our Machine!) Tony’s will donate $1 for every vegan hot dog sold to the organization. Hooray! And your very own pink dino gets the inaugural week! We’re the special from Monday, November 3, to Sunday, November 9, which gives you a full seven days to gorge yourself!

The Vegansaurus Dog is a Field Roast sausage topped with mango melon salsa, avocado lime purée, and sriracha aioli. Tropical heat! The bun is vegan and locally baked, but you can totally sub greens if you’re that kind of person. (I am that kind of person, it’s OK!) And eating activism is Vegansaurus’s preferred method of indirect aid. 

As for the rest of the month, try the Sexy Vegan Dog during the second week (griddled onions, vegan cheese, shredded cabbage, diced tomatoes, and special sauce; November 10 to 16), The Derby Dog on week three (mole sauce, jalapeños, diced avocado, shaved red onions; November 17 to 23), and our friend Quarry Girl’s creation on the fourth week (sauerkraut, creole mustard, pickled jalapeño, garlic paste; November 24-29)!

Celebrate Dogs for Dogs with some excellent food, local beers, and your favorite vegan bloggers all November long. The Beagle Freedom Project deserves your dollars! Many thanks to Tony’s Darts Away for this awesome project. We love our vegan-friendly omni pals! See you next week!

Tony’s Darts Away is located at 1710 West Magnolia Boulevard in Burbank. For more information, visit them online. For more information about the Beagle Freedom Project, visit them online.

Culinary genius Miyoko Schinner, queen of vegan cheeses, sent us eight of her line of nine fancy pants gourmet cashew cheeses to sample. Turns out everything everyone has been saying about them is 100 percent true: These cheeses are legit.

The Classic Double Cream Chive and Fresh Loire Valley in a Fig Leaf. Look at all those cracker options I got for Meave! I’m too good to her.

Megan very sweetly hosted a wine and cheese tasting party at her lovely new apartment for us; as I texted Laura a few hours later in a boozy, cheesy fog, we have arrived. This is the stuff of cheese boards and decadent sandwiches and European picnics. It is not all of the cheese, but this culinary art form is still in its infancy. Imagine if humankind had taken millennia to cultivate the art of cultured nut cheeses alongside (instead of!) dairy cheeses? Miyoko’s Kitchen represents such a strong start, I can’t wait to see what vegan cheeses will look like in another five years. In the meantime, let’s review some cheese! 

I’m pretty sure this is a pic of the High Sierra Rustic Alpine. Either that or the Smoked Farmhouse. I forget. Sue me. 

(Megan’s sister, DearCally, was on hand to try some vegan cheese too, so we got an omnivore opinion as well. In other news, CALLY IS ADORBS) 

High Sierra Rustic Alpine
Meave says: Super smoky, creamy, sharper at the finish. The smokiness is pleasant; not, as Megan says, at all like a ham. Best of the smoky ones. Chewier than I expected, but good.
Megan says:Yes, def smoky. I don’t usually like smoky because it tastes like ham mixed with chemicals but this is different! I like this! (Spoiler: this ended up being my fave)
Cally says: Tastes like cheddar.

Aged English Smoked Farmhouse
Meave says: Thick, super duper smoky, chewy. A little gluey. Not as refined as the Rustic Alpine. Still not like a ham. Also, two dairy-cheese-lovers I later shared this with claim it tastes “just like” smoked Gouda. I cannot vouch for this, but I trust their opinions.
Megan says: Less creamy than the Rustic Alpine and a touch more smoky. 

Double Cream Sundried Tomato Garlic
Meave says: Tangy, garlicky, creamy, like really fancy cream cheese but better. Gets better when warmer, but leave it sitting out too long and it’ll start to separate a little, so be careful. I really want this on toast.
Megan says: Mmmmm yummy. I thought it’d be like cream cheese but it’s not.
Cally says: This is effing good. This would spice up that tofu y’all always eat.

Classic Double Cream Chive.

Classic Double Cream Chive
Meave says: Like the fanciest cream cheese you ever had. Oniony and bright, but milder, in the vein of double creams.
Megan says: Like scallion cream cheese but thicker. And better. It would make a bagel crazy good.
Cally says: It would make a lot of stuff crazy good.

Fresh Loire Valley in a Fig Leaf
Meave says: Amazing. Eat the leaf with the cheese, don’t peel it off and discard it. Sweet but not cloying, fruity, super creamy. Finish is … vanilla? Or something? We cannot identify this mysterious flavor — IS IT FIG? — but it is incredible. My favorite.
Megan says: Tastes like…tastes like dolmas?
Cally says: Tastes like candy and apricots and…something. I don’t know. I’m freaking out.

Close up of the Country Style Herbes de Provence. Herbalicious, right?

Country Style Herbes de Provence
Meave says: Super herbaceous, of course, lots of rosemary, sage, and thyme. Drier than the others, but still creamier than crumbly. Sharp but no bite. You could easily crumble this in a salad. My second favorite
Megan says: Thickest of them. Very good, very rosemary-y. Tastes like my mom’s thanksgiving stuffing (I guess she uses herbes de provence?). 

Aged English Sharp Farmhouse
Meave says: Another gluey consistency but cheddary and pleasant. Milder than the smoked but still fairly smoky Kind of reminds me of childhood but I don’t know why. I wish it were a little harder? But it’s solid.
Megan says: Cheddary and kind of thick like clay. 
Cally says: Tastes like cheddar and romano. 

And there you have it! Thanks for joining us on this vegan cheese journey! You can order the cheese for yourself online. Have any of you already tried them? Which is the best? Megan says Rustic Alpine, Meave says the fig leaf one!